I left Mills-James in 1996 and took a position with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and focused on skin weighting. I found that to properly skin a character, you need to know how it works, how to fix it and how to rebuild it. I was fortunate to sit next to and work with Dennis Turner, an amazing animator and character rigger that taught me more than I could have ever hoped for. Working with him on many projects (see Figure 1), as well as with Tim McGlaughlin (see Chapter 17 of this book for an interview with Tim), Kevin Reuter, James Tooley, Doug Smith and others gave me an appreciation that you rig for the artist, the animator— not for the rocket scientist technical director.

In the spring of 2000, I was offered a position at DreamWorks Feature Animation to help set up a 3D character pipeline. It sounded like a great opportunity, and I left ILM for sunny Los Angeles. I got my first dose of Maya after being in the world of proprietary software and Softimage at ILM. I helped set up a bunch of character standards and workflow for the 3D aspects of the pipeline. We were making 3D characters to be rendered to look like 2D animation. The results were beautiful, and I got to work with some wonderful people. Overall, the environment was a bit overwhelming for me, and I decided to look for a position at a smaller company. I’ve been at Rhythm & Hues since the fall of 2001.

[Figure 2] Tried and true methodologies coupled with new innovations played a key role in creating the rigging for Imhotep.

MF: Can you describe the first thing that you do when you get geometry from a modeler or after you have created the model itself? How do you begin the process of creating a character setup?

RG: The first issue with geometry is resolution. How does it need to move? Where is it going to change its shape the most, and do I have enough resolution in those areas to get the shapes I need? You need more resolution in the elbow than in the sections of the arm above and below the elbow, because the elbow exhibits the most change. After I think the resolution is adequate, I build the skeleton and work with the lead animator to fine-tune the points of rotation. Then we can begin skinning the model and building the control system for it. Put time into thinking what controls are needed and how they are oriented. Once animation has begun, you can modify the skin and skeleton all you want and the animation will still work if you don’t change the animation controls.

MF: Are there any rules or guidelines that you always use when designing a setup?

RG: Keep it simple, as simple as possible. Complex characters tend to be slower, harder to fix, harder to understand, and have limitations that may be harder to overcome. I also try not to reinvent the wheel every time.

MF: That being said, when is it a good idea to break from your methodologies and try something new or innovative?

RG: Well, with each new system, you hope to improve upon your previous work (see Figures 2 and 3), but try to limit your improvements to where previous solutions failed to perform to meet your expectations. I also like trying techniques I hear other people are using. If I see a difference in what I have built, I go ahead and start using that technique. But one thing to keep in mind is that you should understand what you build, how it works and what each part does. Building some fancy new hand control can kill you in the end when it doesn’t allow for accurate motion, the skinning looks terrible, and you have no idea how the system works. I have seen this so many times in people’s rigs, especially students.